Connections User Conference

Email, Meet Social.

Saturday, March 6, 2010 by Dawn DeVirgilio

Last week was a tremendous week here at ExactTarget with the acquisition announcement of CoTweet. This acquisition sent a lot of buzz through the press (we really have been all-a-Twitter!), Twitter and even my inbox! I couldn't be more excited about the future of interactive marketing.

I've used CoTweet since the spring of 2009 to listen and engage with ExactTarget's Twitter conversations. Honestly, after going thru multiple processes and using multiple different applications - it is the only platform truly built for businesses to manage their Twitter conversations.

Email Marketing Meet Social Media Marketing
What's really exciting is that this is a huge statement in one-to-one communications. Consumers are demanding marketers to send them relevelant messages, in the way they want to receive it. Your customer may want a tweet for a discount code, a text message for when their purchase has been shipped and an email for recommending new products they might like based off of what they've purchased.

Who's geeked out? I know I am!

Want to learn more? Check out http://www.exacttarget.com/Connected for more info, great data on Social Media Trends and a video from both CEOs talking about the power of ExactTarget & CoTweet.

ExactTarget Acquires CoTweet

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by Scott Dorsey

The below message was sent to all ExactTarget clients March 2, 2010. For additional information on the acquisition, visit www.ExactTarget.com/Connected

Email Marketing Meets Social Media - ExactTarget & CoTweet from ExactTarget on Vimeo.

Today is a historic day for ExactTarget and our clients! We are taking an enormous step forward in helping you bring together all forms of interactive communications and drive deeper customer engagement by combining the power of email marketing and social media.

I am excited to announce ExactTarget has completed the acquisition of CoTweet, the enterprise leader in helping businesses connect with customers via Twitter. CoTweet is an amazing software company that powers the Twitter campaigns of big brands like Microsoft, McDonald's, Sprint, Ford, Dell, Pepsi, Whole Foods, Intuit, Salesforce.com, USA Today and Coca-Cola. CoTweet's Web-based collaboration platform provides a single dashboard that allows multiple users to track conversations, assign roles and create follow-up tasks through workflows and simple case management. As one of the earliest Twitter pioneers, CoTweet has developed one of the closest direct relationships with Twitter and has earned the trust and admiration of the social media world.

CoTweet brings tremendous social media capabilities to ExactTarget and will operate as a business unit of ExactTarget in San Francisco focused exclusively on social media product development. CoTweet Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jesse Engle will lead the team and report directly to me as we work to quickly invest additional resources to establish our Social Media Lab - where we'll develop new innovations to help you harness the collective power of CoTweet and ExactTarget to increase customer engagement. To learn how you can leverage the power of ExactTarget and CoTweet together, visit ExactTarget.com/Connected. Click here to start using the free beta version of CoTweet or visit CoTweet's enterprise innovator's page to learn how you can access richer analytics, conversation history and drive even higher levels of engagement with their enterprise edition.

Today's announcement is the realization of the continued evolution of interactive marketing. We look forward to working with the CoTweet team to deliver new innovations and help drive your business by bringing together the power of email marketing and social media. Thank you for your continued partnership.

Start the month with ExactTarget 3sixty (and maybe a gift....)

Monday, March 1, 2010 by Liz Farrelly

The beginning of the week always feels like a new start – a blank slate to fill with projects and meetings. The first of the month also feels that way for me…like the opportunity for success, change, and new ideas is just waiting in the next 31 days.

Since today is March 1st, I took a few moments to reflect on the state of 3sixty. And I couldn’t believe what I saw! ExactTarget 3sixty is thisclose to have 20,000 members in the site. Pretty exciting and impressive for a little closed network that we launched 18 months ago!

I couldn’t let this milestone pass without a little excitement (as is the ExactTarget way!). So, to all of you (our fabulous blog readers) a challenge. If you aren’t in 3sixty yet, get in there. Encourage your fellow co-workers and team members to create their profiles. New to ExactTarget? Login into 3sixty right now!

Why the urgency you ask? Because I will personally be sending an orange 16GB iPod nano to the 20,000 person to join ExactTarget 3sixty! That’s right – a call to all of our current clients! Sign up now, create your profile, and start using the site. Of course, the chance of winning the iPod is phenomenal, but I think that the resources for 1 to 1 marketing, email best practices, and ExactTarget tutorials (and more!) will pay off long after the iPod is loaded with all your favorite tunes.

It’s the beginning of the month – a new, fresh start. Why not kick it off like a lion?

*This contest is only open to ExactTarget customers due to the nature of ExactTarget 3sixty permissions and access.

Seven Myths And Two Truths About Inbox Placement

Monday, February 22, 2010 by Al Iverson

ReturnPath gurus George Bilbrey and Stephanie Miller set the record straight about inbox placement and deliverability in this very insightful article found last week in MediaPost.

Apologies for being late to the party. I was out at the MAAWG conference for most of that week. MAAWG is a closed conference, so I can't report on too much of what was discussed there, other than to say that it's a very useful collaborative forum for ISPs, ESPs, spam filterers, and security groups to work together to address spam and security issues. It's a great place to share and learn.

Twitterview: Success By Email Design

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 by Dawn DeVirgilio

Feburary is unoffically Email Design Month here at ExactTarget. (Hint: If you aren't subscribed to Insight you can opt-in to our own email marketing newsletter - There will be some Email Design info coming your way this month!)

Today I was excited to have a Twitterview with ExactTarget's Justine Jordan, Manger of Design Solutions on our Email Design Twitter Account @ETDesign.

ExactTarget: @ETDesign In your resolution you challenge marketers to Design for Subscribers. Why is it not just about graphics and templates? #ET2010

Justine: Your subscribers determine your success or failure. Design with their needs in mind and they will reward you.

Justine: To design is to create a purpose/plan. Graphics are important (brand awareness, trust) but just part of the equation

ExactTarget: What is the first step for marketers to incorporate social media into their design?

Justine: Start small, have a plan. Decide if you will link to existing presence or enable content share. Design, test, repeat.

ExactTarget: Design.Test.Repeat is great advice! What do you recommend to marketers who are just starting to do email design testing?

Justine: Find out what elements drive success and focus your efforts there. Explore different ways to highlight key messages.

Justine: Make decisions based on data. Test the usual and then get creative. Left or right sidebar? Product or lifestyle image?

ExactTarget: What brands are doing a good job of creating great social experiences in their email design?

Justine: Brands that are finding ways to start conversations. Need unique ways to encourage interaction, not just clicks.

ExactTarget: Lastly, What was the most interesting takeaway from the Connections 09 Extreme Makeover Design Edition Session?

Justine: Can I quote @andy_mott? :: “Our intuition will never be as good as our ability to test.”

Justine: @ExactTarget Also, take risks, but make informed decisions. Be open to success where you didn't expect it and failure where you did #ET2010

How are you starting the conversation with your email marketing and social media strategy? Make sure to check out our 2010 Resolutions for more from our thought leaders on email design, deliverability, and subscriber engagement. And as always you can get more email design tips from ExactTarget on our blog.

ExactTarget at WebTrends Engage

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 by Colby Cavanaugh

Hello!

We’re here at the WebTrends Engage 2010 conference this week, located down South in the Big Easy. As a Gold sponsor of the conference, ExactTarget is excited to be present at this SOLD OUT event!

Later today, I’ll be speaking briefly at the general session on multichannel marketing and the importance of creating engagement across all channels – not just email. You’ll even see a quick demonstration on shortcode and text-in campaigns. Make sure to tune in, as you’ll have a chance to win a Starbucks gift card!

Plus, stop by Booth #7 at the conference to receive a complimentary copy of The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q4 2009, where ExactTarget was named a LEADER in email marketing.

With all this great stuff in store, we can’t wait to see you there!

Email Evolution 2010 Will Rock!

Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Joel Book

We at ExactTarget are proud to once again be the Exclusive Title Sponsor of the DMA’s Email Evolution Conference which kicks off on Monday, February 1st in Miami at the fabulous Eden Roc Hotel. Conference organizers tell me they are expecting a record turnout, and it’s easy to see why. This program is locked and loaded! And the lineup of speakers is off the hook.

Keynoting Email Evolution 2010 is Brian Harniman, EVP of Marketing and Distribution at Kayak. Harniman will offer a visionary look at the Kayak.com customer experience today and tomorrow with a focus on the role of email in relation to other channels.

Harniman will be one of many outstanding experts on email marketing including several ExactTarget clients and partners including Renee Middleton of Taco John’s, Kip Edwardson of Scotts Miracle-Gro, Andrew Kordek of Groupon, and Mike Corak of Mighty Interactive

The New Triangle Offense of 1to1 Marketing

If you want to see two outstanding examples of how brands are successfully using Email + Social Media + Mobile to attract and retain customers, plan to attend my session on Tuesday afternoon. I’ll be joined by Renee Middleton of Taco John’s and Kip Edwardson of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company.

In our session, you’ll learn how marketers are:

Using Dynamic Content to personalize product information and offers to subscriber interests
Using Social Forward to empower “brand fans” to expand message distribution to friends
Using Mobile Messaging to accelerate response to offers and attract new subscribers

Register Today and Save $200!

I think the Email Evolution Conference will be one of the BEST conferences on email marketing you will attend this year. So if you haven’t registered yet, do it now!

Call Barbara Cruz in DMA Customer Service at 212.790.1500. Or go to the EEC2010 Registration page, enter the special code BEST, and you will save $200.

See you in sunny Miami!

My Resolutions Have Resolutions

Friday, January 22, 2010 by Megan Sabine

As a fellow email marketer, I spent quite a bit of time in December determining what my 2010 resolutions were going to be. After finalizing my goals, I stared at my list…and then had a moment of panic. How exactly am I going to get everything done in 2010?!?!?

It was at that moment that I decided to make resolutions on how I plan to achieve my resolutions. (And yes, I’m aware that it’s a lot like having a meeting to discuss another meeting or having a plan to have a plan.)

I’ve got high expectations for the New Year and I won’t settle for anything less. Hopefully by using the sub-goals below (yup, I said sub-goals), I’ll have a completed to-do list on December 31, 2010. And in my eyes that’s reason enough to have goals for goals and meetings on meetings!

One slip up doesn’t mean I get to forget about that resolution for the rest of the year.
Like many of you, a big resolutions of mine is to test, test, and test some more with ExactTarget’s communications. Also like many of you, sometime the timeline doesn’t allow for the in-depth testing schedule I’d like. While those scenarios aren’t going to go away in 2010, the notion of “well I didn’t test anything on the last communication, so I’m not going to on this one either” will. Every time I have the opportunity to test, you can bet I will.

Set goals that are both challenging and attainable.
While I’m a big fan of setting high goals, I’m an even bigger fan of achieving my goals. Goals should be pushing you past the limits of your comfort zone and challenging you to reach the next level, but you shouldn’t be setting goals that have a zero chance of being met. If currently all of your email campaigns are a manual process, make one of your 2010 goals to automate 4 campaigns versus automating all of your campaigns. If none of your communications contain a social media aspect, resolve to have social media in your “bread and butter” communications.

Uncomplicating my complicated goals.
In the world of email marketing, it’s easy to make a scenario complicated very quickly. For example, you want your email communications to feed off of search history living in your website analytics while pulling in information from your CRM – all while conducting a multi-variant test. And the head scratching begins. Having a 360 view of how your subscriber is interacting with your company is a great 2010 resolution, but at the same time very daunting to tackle at once. It’s a lot easier to tackle one complex goal (think integrating your email with your web analytics) than attempting to tackle all of them at once. That’s why I’ll be setting quarterly goals that will keep me on track for achieving the bigger (and scarier) resolutions of 2010.

P.S. Stuck on what your 2010 resolutions should be? Our latest whitepaper, 5 Resolutions Every Marketer Must Make in 2010, takes the guess work out of the equation.

Design Tip of the Week: Email + Video: Take 2: Connections ’09 Panel Recap, Part 2 (of 3)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 by Chris Studabaker

Last post, I discussed current support and delivery methods for email + video. This time we're going to focus on some of the benefits and concerns and finish with a few closing thoughts. As I mentioned last time, please note that this blog centers on the technological considerations around email + video—the strategy around sending video in email (or not) is another discussion!

Benefits of email + video

Strong emotional appeal
Highly engaging
Personal, even user-generated content

Video offers incredible emotional appeal and a personal, highly engaging form of communication. Online video and social media offer the additional bonus of user-generated content, an incredibly effective tool for brand recognition and even advertising when used properly. Volumes have been written on this subject, and I recommend further reading on video as an advertising medium.

Concerns regarding email + video

Development cost and time
File size and bandwidth
Frame rate inconsistencies
Deliverability

Video use does come with some concerns, the foremost being that video represents a considerable development cost and time investment. Integrating video with email requires first having the video! Creating video content then requires the same commitment to brand standards and quality that comprises the rest of your brand experience.

Moving to technical issues, browsers interpret animated .gif frame rates differently, so it's important to test and ensure your .gif appears as desired in all browsers. File sizes and bandwidth are also a concern. A typical HTML email message may be no more than 150KB, including images, but even a simple animated .gif can double the total file size. To carry this further, sending a 1 MB video to one million subscribers can demand significant resources, and adding send frequency to the equation means we must be cognizant of the effect video can have on web hosting and bandwidth. The lack of video standards also raises concerns with deliverability. ISPs and email clients have different standards when determining spam/junk/trash messages, and the lack of generally accepted practices makes testing even more important.

These concerns can certainly be addressed successfully, but these points show it's important to remember that adding video to an email program represents far more than simply a new content block to plan.

Conclusion

Remember the message's primary goal
Consider video in content hierarchy
Know your audience
Subscriber expectations

In the end, we land on a mindset you're very familiar with: Subscribers Rule! Whether it's text headlines or Hollywood-style full motion video, know your subscribers and provide relevant content. Crafting engaging calls to action, nurturing a subscriber-centric content strategy, and establishing strong subscriber relationships are still primary concerns to email marketers, and video is a powerful new tool we can begin to use in accomplishing those goals.

You can check out Part 1 of this series for info on current support and delivery methods for email + video. Part 3 will share some interesting customer experiences and discuss ExactTarget's animated and static .gif testing using Connections '09 emails.

See You in Miami for Email Summit ’10!

Friday, January 15, 2010 by Joel Book

I’m really looking forward to next week’s MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit, and hope to see many of you in Miami for this terrific event. If you haven’t checked out the lineup of speakers for Email Summit ‘10, take a look. It’s loaded!

Keynoting Email Summit ‘10 will be Joseph Jaffe, bestselling author of "Join the Conversation" and "Life After the 30-Second Spot."

Joseph keynoted ExactTarget’s Connections 2008 conference and is regarded as one of the brightest minds and visionaries in interactive marketing.

In his presentation titled, "Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones"- Email's New Critical Role,” Jaffe will discuss the expanding role of email to establish powerful relationships with customer evangelists, and show how to equip this base with the necessary tools, techniques and incentives to spread word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals to social networks, trusted peers and communities.

All Email Summit Attendees will Get Joseph’s New Book

As a special bonus, ExactTarget has arranged for each attendee of Email Summit ’10 to receive a copy of Joseph Jaffe’s new book “Flip the Funnel.”

And if you would like to meet Joseph in person and have him sign your copy of “Flip the Funnel,” just stop by the ExactTarget exhibit following his keynote.

Haven’t Registered Yet?

The Email Summit is one of the best conferences on email marketing you will attend this year. So if you haven’t registered yet, give this some serious thought. You can register at the Email Summit ’10 website or by calling toll free 877-895-1717.

Haiti Relief Text Campaign from Red Cross Emphasizes Convenience and Immediacy of SMS

Friday, January 15, 2010 by Amanda Berkey

According to the Mashable blog, by 5:30pm EST Jan 14, only two days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the Red Cross has raised an impressive $5 million dollars from their Text campaign. If you were on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites this week, you may have seen the outcries to donate $10 by texting "Haiti" to the shortcode 90999. If you do the quick math, that's 500,000 mobile subscribers that have used text messaging to donate to the Haitian relief efforts led by the Red Cross. The blog post also shows an SMS message flow explaining how easy it is for a mobile subscriber to text in "Haiti" and then "Yes" to confirm their donation. In two short SMS messages, a single person is able to contribute to the larger cause from anywhere!

As the product marketing manager for the SMS portfolio at ExactTarget, I'm very impressed, but not surprised by the results of this SMS campaign. When I meet with customers who are strategizing about their 1 to 1 Marketing campaigns that include email, SMS, web, and social media, we discuss the reasons that SMS messaging to communicate with your subscribers are effective.

We are in an era when people are more likely to have a mobile phone rather than a traditional land line. And mobile phones are something that people do not leave home without. Whether you have a smart phone or standard mobile phone, SMS text plans is now considered basic communication. How many times have you ditched leaving a person you were calling a voicemail to send them a simple text message? Many people outside of the business world forgo the expensive data plans to receive email and web from their phone, but gladly pay for their SMS messaging plans.

Including text messaging in your 1 to 1 marketing strategy is a powerful way to reach your audience can have huge rewards:

SMS messaging is immediate and direct: by nature of the US standard of 160 characters, text messages are short and concise. They reach the person that needs the quick information. And responding to or reading a text message takes only seconds and it doesn't require you to shift your focus too much. You can even do it in a meeting! *Wink*
Text messaging campaigns are always available when a person is interested: savvy marketers know that it takes massive effort to get a prospect engaged in their brand. Having a text campaign that a mobile subscriber can respond to a call-to-action at the emotional high of the interest, can be the difference if they ever participate or not. Let's face it, when they get back to their computer, even a geniunely interested person is likely to forget that they wanted to sign up for your program.
SMS can augment email marketing efforts: the best example of this approach is from our customer, Pier 1 Imports, who follows up with email drip marketing from new subscribers they captured from their text sweepstakes at college bookstores. Leveraging both email and text messaging for marketing campaigns can empower you to send relevant information using both messaging channels

The recent example of a non-profit organization raising donations and enabling the general public to act is proof that SMS messaging when combined with social media and email can have incredible impact and rewards. For more thoughts about getting started with Text Messaging check out our recent webinar.

Email Design Tip of the Week: Email + Video: Take 2: Connections ’09 Panel Recap, Part 1 (of 3)

Thursday, January 14, 2010 by Chris Studabaker

Video in email is one of the most intriguing hot topics regarding email's technological growth and audience engagement capacity. Current support for the combined use of these mediums is low, but audience interest and advertiser investment in online video—and this type of media convergence—continues to grow. This blog recaps the major points I discussed in the "Email + Video: Take 2" panel at Connections '09. Please note that this blog centers on the technological considerations around email + video—the strategy around sending video in email (or not) is another discussion!

Online video
Online video, itself, is young—it only began to take root in 2005—but it's quickly become an integral part of our online lives. Discussed in conjunction with email, it's imperative to note that online video has already seen rough standards emerge (formats such as .mpg, .mov, .wmv, and .avi). Email, unfortunately, continues its history of little to no standards, and the emergence of video in email has created a new set of compatibility issues.

Current support for video in email
Today, there's a near complete lack of support for video across the major email clients. Sporadic support exists for some formats but the animated .gif is the only format reliably supported. Gif is a standard web image format and supports animation, though it's limited to 256 colors, does not support sound, and inconsistent frame rates are possible. It's hardly a true video format—which has given rise to some innovative, albeit workaround, solutions—but animated .gif images remain the best all-around option for including motion graphics in email.

There are also a few companies in the marketplace offering paid solutions to include video in email. These companies offer two main services: first, the technology to send video; and second, relationships with consumer email services (such as AOL and others) to allow the successful receipt of that video. However, the list of ISPs supporting these services is limited and should be researched. Lastly, HTML5 is around the corner and there are indications that it might open more options for including video in email.

Delivery methods

Streaming – video downloaded as it plays
Linking – click through to externally hosted video
Embedding – video data included in sent message

To avoid confusion, it's important to set a few definitions regarding the three methods of video delivery. Streaming video refers to a hosted video beginning to play as soon as enough data has loaded, and then continuing to load as it plays (as on YouTube, for example). Ultimately, this is the experience that marketers hope to deliver with video in email. However, the current standard practice is to use a static image with a "play" button, linking to a page on which subscribers can watch the externally hosted video—your website, a landing page, even your company's YouTube channel. Linking to video poses no technical challenges and will work in all browsers and email clients.

Embedding is occasionally mentioned and refers to actually inserting the video file or video code into the email itself, almost like attaching the video to the email. This is a workaround, represents a negative user experience in many ways, and is not recommended.

Part 2 of this topic will contain a look at benefits & concerns of email + video and give a few concluding thoughts. Part 3 will share some interesting customer experiences and discuss ExactTarget's animated and static .gif testing using Connections '09 emails.

Join today: Email Design Testing Webinar

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 by Kristina Schott

At ExactTarget, we design emails for success. Part of that process may include putting a few design variations up against each other in a test.

In September, ExactTarget hosted the Extreme Makeover: The Email Design Competition as a highlight to Connections '09. Read up on an overview and results here.

On January 13th, MarketingExperiments, the researchers who partnered with ExactTarget to analyze the data of the tests, will hold a webinar exploring the results.

The ExactTarget Design Solutions team will be logged in, watching the results unfold with you! We're excited to see the data of our redesigned emails analyzed by MarketingExperiments' Senior Manager of Research Partmerships, Andy Mott. Also exciting is the opportunity to hear the dulcet voice our very own Joel Book, who will be appearing as a special guest.

Register and join us to celebrate performance-driven design!

Maximize your Agency ROI: How adding science to the creative process reveals a 26% gain in email response!
Wednesday, January 13, 2009
4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST

Register now!

Aptera’s 2010 Email Marketing Resolutions

Friday, January 8, 2010 by Dawn DeVirgilio

The following post is from Brooke Francesi who runs email marketing at Aptera, an ExactTarget customer. Aptera is a custom software development and web design firm.

With a new year, a new decade, and a lucky seven anniversary on the horizon, Aptera is looking forward to 2010, especially what is holds in store for our e-mail marketing program. Unlike other marketing avenues, it’s a relatively painless process to analyze the overall success of your e-mail campaigns and adjust where needed. That’s exactly what we’ve done to create our resolutions for 2010.

More effective segmentation:
While our subscriber lists are already segmented into basic categories, we realize that segmentation doesn’t have to end there. For 2010 we are resolved to revamp our system and divide subscribers into vertical markets in order to better serve their interests. We do our best to adhere to ExactTarget’s Subscribers Rule! mantra and that’s something better segmentation can only help.

1, 2, 3 Testing:
This year we’ve vowed to stop listening to what people tell us will work, and find out what really works. We know what worked last year, but will it work this year? Numerous sources report that testers achieve significantly higher open and click-through rates, as well as conversion rates. We’re not going to just believe it; we’re going to test different variations of the message, the creative, the timing, and the frequency.

Get social:
For Aptera, 2010 is the year we eradicate the “one-way-road” approach to information. We’re building a four-lane highway to connect data-rich sources of information. Keeping e-mail and social media apart just doesn’t make sense. We plan to share the stand-out information in our e-mails, and recruit opt-ins from friends and followers in our social environments. Why would we use social networking and e-mail as mutually exclusive channels when we can utilize them together?

There are easily over a dozen other 2010 resolutions we could be making to improve the success of Aptera’s e-mail marketing campaigns, but there sense in getting ahead of ourselves. I firmly believe that positive change occurs in baby steps, and by setting oneself up for success rather than failure. So, here’s to 2010 and e-mail success for everyone!

Email Marketing Resolutions: All About Subscribers!

Thursday, January 7, 2010 by Dawn DeVirgilio

We just completed the first 'Twinterview' in a series we'll be doing with some of our experts on email design, deliverability, education and research from our latest resource, Five Resolutions Every Marketer Must Make in 2010.

Here is how it went down:

ExactTarget: @jkrohrs - What’s the most important resolution for email marketers in 2010? #ET2010

jkrohrs: @ExactTarget In 2010, email marketers should resolve to actually meet their best subscribers face-to-face.

ExactTarget: You talk about customer feedback in the whitepaper, what’s the best way to get it?

jkrohrs: No "best way" for customer feedback. Seek it wherever possible. Start conversations. Meet in person. Survey.

ExactTarget: What brands do a good job of engaging customers to get feedback?

jkrohrs: Amazon, Zappos, Apple. But there's a lot to learn from local companies who depend on WOM to survive.

ExactTarget: How should everyone's favorite topic, Social Media, fit into marketers’ new year’s resolutions?

jkrohrs: Be authentic. Passionate marketers are best at social media. Not passionate about your product? Change jobs.

ExactTarget: And last but not least! How does the Subscribers Rule philosophy play into all of this?

jkrohrs: The @SubscribersRule philosophy reminds us all that consumers--subscribers--are our bosses. Serve them well.

You can check it out yourself by searching #ET2010 (where Jeff also add's some color commentary on his authentic avatar), and read more on Jeff's 2010 resolution.

Marketer to Give Free Hugs in 2010!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 by Jeffrey Rohrs

That’s right! You heard it here first. I am giving out FREE HUGS in 2010. To claim yours, simply approach me on sight and tell me that you want your free hug and I will oblige with all due speed and decorum.

Now what in the wide, wide world of sports does this have to do with email marketing? Simply stated, everything. But before I explain, I must first digress.

You see, in 2004, an Australian man who goes by the moniker “Juan Mann” Battling depression & loneliness, he wandered into a party and received the gift of his life from a stranger. The gift? It was a simple hug—a hug that helped shake Mann out of his doldrums and inspired him to do something crazy. Mann promptly wrote the words “FREE HUGS” on a sign and then started walking the Pitt Street Mall in Sydney looking to give free hugs to anyone who asked.

At first, strangers avoided Mann like the plague. But then, one older woman took him up on the offer, then another person, and another. And now, nearly six years later, his FREE HUGS campaign has spawned spontaneous & random acts of kindness the world around (as well as one of YouTube’s most viewed videos)

Yes, Juan Mann made a difference and started a movement.

The question is whether in 2010 you will be that “Juan Mann” for your organization. Will you break out from behind your marketing dashboard, laptop, cubicle and other corporate restraints to actually meet with those customers, subscribers, friends & followers upon whom your business relies for its very existence? And if you do, are you prepared to give them the hug they so richly deserve?

My resolution is to do just that in 2010. FREE HUGS cut through the technology and connect people to people. They remind us that we aren’t merely the sum for our inboxes, Facebook updates, and tweets. They also remind us that to truly understand our subscribers needs as email marketers, we need to understand them as individuals with individuals needs. They remind us that SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

Looking for more resolutions to help you get more from your email marketing efforts in 2010? Check out our new, hot-off-the-presses piece entitled, “Five Resolutions Every Marketer Must Make in 2010." We couldn’t fit my hug in there, but I trust that you’ll take me up on the offer be it on the road, at an industry conference or at Connections 2010!

See You at Sherpa!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 by Al Iverson

I'll be participating in a B2C deliverability panel at MarketingSherpa's Email Summit in Miami later this month. I always learn something valuable at a MarketingSherpa conference, and it's very easy to oblige their request to participate when it allows me to listen and learn from all of the other smart minds on display. I hope to see you there! For more information on the summit, check out this note from our own Joel Book (including a discount available through 1/8) and here's the official site.

Connections Extreme Makeover: Pier 1 Redesign

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 by Andrea Smith

Our previous blogs, Connections Extreme Makeover: AAA Ohio Redesign and Connections Extreme Makeover: MarketingExperiments Redesign covered the Design Solutions teams’ redesigns for AAA Ohio and MarketingExperiments. To finish up, we’d like to share our thoughts on our final redesign.

Pier 1 Imports is a retailer that focuses heavily on unique furniture, home décor and accessories. Based on our conversations with Pier 1, the bulk of their customer base falls around females in the 50-60 age range. High quality products are marketed through the channels of print, in-store collateral, web, and email. Though the use of email and web, Pier 1 uses these channels to drive brand recognition and encourage online browsing before driving the consumer to the store to make a purchase.   

With this in mind, the ExactTarget team took a very sophisticated and streamlined approach to the Creature Comforts email campaign, using warm, harmonious colors and existing brand elements to deliver value and increase engagement with the Pier 1 brand. Let’s break apart our strategy and check out the email:   

Preheader
Experience and testing tells us that this area of the email is very important, and can serve as a main driver to engagement. We deliver two strategic ways to view the email as a web page, forward the email, and connect via social media on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. As an added benefit, some email clients pull this teaser text into their inbox preview before the email is ever opened.   

Header
The header features the brand mark in prime email real estate and will link to the Pier 1 homepage. To the right, we’ve pulled out the three most strategic links to drive subscriber engagement based on past email performance metrics and value provided on the website. Room gallery is an important place to drive web traffic and engage the subscribers in furniture placements in different room settings. The Pier 1 Studio offers amazing design tips and ideas that will engage subscribers, and Special Values have proven to be of high interest based on past clicks and obvious savings.   

Feature
This feature uses a combination of on-brand fonts, text rendering and imagery to offer a clean look directly placed in the preview pane. This simple room shot will encourage click through to the website, focusing on a clean, simple, and sophisticated approach in line with the quality of the products offered. The design elements of line, color and quirky framing will help the Pier 1 brand stand out in the crowd.   

Body
Four products are dramatically outlined and provide a sleek way to encourage pre-shopping on the website. These products were strategically chosen from the images provided as they are highlighted in the campaign and artfully pull through the rich fall colors. Allowing subscribers to see the actual prices and pieces of furniture pulled out can help set brand expectations and encourage click through.   

Recovery Module
These three items provide even more value to the subscriber audience, giving them convenient access to savings through Pier 1 Rewards, ability to buy gift cards online, and finding a store. Metrics show that most subscribers already know where their stores are, but those that don’t can easily click through. 

 Footer
Main website navigation is important to include, but click data shows us that it does not necessarily require prime real estate in the email. Copyright, privacy, unsubscribe, and customer relations functionality are important (and some are required!) and can fall in one clean line as they are self explanatory. Disclaimers and CAN-SPAM compliant mailing address follow.

  While the results of the Makeover showed that Pier 1’s control design outperformed the redesigns in actual sales conversion, our team strove to stay true to the brand and add a new dimension to the email program that strategically reorganizes Pier 1’s offerings, allowing the true beauty and quality of the products to shine. It is highly useable and engaging, with strategic goals of boosting click-through, web traffic, and ultimately driving consumers inside the Pier 1 stores for more.

Thanks for reading some of the stories behind Extreme Makeover: The Email Design Competition! Look for more 1 to 1 marketing advice and Email Design Tips in our upcoming 2010 blogs.

Don’t Miss MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit! (Save $600)

Friday, December 18, 2009 by Joel Book

There are plenty of reasons I like to attend MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit, but the single best reason is the speakers. The line-up of speakers for the upcoming Email Summit ‘10 in January is no exception.

Keynoting Email Summit ‘10 will be Joseph Jaffe, President of crayon and bestselling author of "Join the Conversation" and "Life After the 30-Second Spot." Joseph keynoted ExactTarget’s Connections 2008 conference and is one of the brightest minds in our business. In his presentation at Email Summit ‘10, Jaffe will discuss the expanding role of email to establish powerful relationships with customer evangelists, and show how to equip this base with the necessary tools, techniques and incentives to spread word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals to social networks, trusted peers and communities.

As a special bonus, ExactTarget has arranged for each attendee of Email Summit ’10 to receive their personal copy of his new book “Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones”

Headlining the B2B track will be Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch. Brian is the author of "Lead Generation for the Complex Sale" and his presentation is titled: How to Design Email Lead Nurturing Programs That Drive Sales. This is a can't-miss presentation for B2B marketers who must nurture prospects through a long sales cycle.

Andrew Chang of AirTran Airways will keynote the B2C track. Chang is Manager of Marketing Strategy at AirTran, and his presentation is titled: Successful Email List Management: Fixing the Leaky Bucket, and will highlight AirTran's email subscriber acquisition strategy that has enabled the airline to grow its subscriber base more than 15%.

Want to Save $600 on Your Email Summit Registration?

We consider the Email Summit to be one of the best conferences on email marketing, and have arranged a special discount to encourage you to attend.

For a limited time, ExactTarget is offering a $600 discount off the Email Summit conference fee of $1,695. This offer expires January 8th, so move on this now! To take advantage of the discount, go to this special Email Summit ’10 registration page.

Connections Extreme Makeover: MarketingExperiments Redesign

Thursday, December 17, 2009 by Kristina Schott

Our previous blog, Connections Extreme Makeover: The Email Design Competition Results, covered the Design Solutions teams’ redesigns for AAA Ohio, Pier 1 and MarketingExperiments. Let’s take a deep dive into the design strategy that led the MarketingExperiments’ email to increased engagement.

MarketingExperiments is a research laboratory whose researchers are tasked with discovering what really works in optimization. The communication MarketingExperiments identified for redesign was their Journal Newsletter, which features an on-demand webinar, upcoming live webinars, and live on-site training sessions. View a sample of the current newsletter.

Our main strategies in tackling this redesign were keeping our audience in mind and designing for ease of use. MarketingExperiments caters to many email-savvy marketers that need to access information quickly and easily without the turn-offs of over-marketing and distracting, unnecessary graphics. Keeping in mind the 5 stages of email viewing, we didn’t want any vital information lost when the email is delivered to the inbox with images blocked. We designed a clean, informational, academic feel with minimal images to reduce information loss, and as a result the redesign featured surprisingly graceful degradation in the images-off view. The logo stood as the only important piece of information requiring an image, and a styled alt tag will be seen on email clients that display them.

To meet MarketingExperiments’ desire for a stronger social presence, we incorporated ExactTarget’s Social Forward: Direct to Social feature after each article, allowing subscribers to share the content on top social media sites. Each button is text-rendering, using background images to create the button-look behind the text. We featured a screenshot of the main feature’s webinar with a play button to prompt the subscriber to view the webinar. The open, clean style of this email mirrors the style of the MarketingExperiments website and blog, to create a consistent, trustworthy brand experience between channels.

ExactTarget’s redesign of MarketingExperiments Journal Newsletter:

Please click on image to see full view.

ExactTarget and Smith-Harmon’s redesigns had a photo finish, ending with a performance difference of less than 2% between them. Success was determined by metrics such as opens, click-through rates, and conversions.

Next up, look for the Pier1 redesign and hear our team’s strategy.

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